The Ugly Duckling

Once upon a time, in a farmyard far away, lived Mother Duck. Seven shiny new eggs lay in her nest and she sat on them patiently.

One sunny morning the eggs began to hatch. One... two... three... four... five... six.... Out popped six fluffy, yellow ducklings. But the seventh egg was bigger than the others, and it didn’t hatch. Mother Duck couldn’t even remember laying seven eggs. She only remembered laying six. How had it got there?

Tap, tap! Someone was pecking inside the egg, trying to get out. Sure enough, out popped a strange-looking duckling. He had brown feathers, not yellow feathers like his brothers and sisters.

“I can’t understand how this ugly duckling can be one of my babies!” Mother Duck thought.

Well, the ugly duckling may not have been pretty, but he was certainly hungry. He ate twice as much as his brothers and sisters, and grew bigger and bigger. Soon they didn’t want to play with him because he was so clumsy. The ugly duckling felt sad and lonely.

“Nobody loves me. Why am I so different?”

One day, he decided to run away. When he reached a pond, he saw some ducks swimming by.

“Do you know of any ducklings with feathers like mine?” he asked. They shook their heads.

“We don’t know anyone as ugly as you,” they laughed spitefully.

On he went until he came to a cottage. The old woman who lived there caught the duckling by his tail.

“I’ll keep this goose, and maybe it will lay lots of eggs for my dinner,” said the old woman.

Her eyesight was so bad that she couldn’t tell the ugly duckling was a boy duckling, and would never lay any eggs. In fact, the old woman’s eyesight was so bad she couldn’t even see that the duckling wasn’t a goose at all.

For weeks the duckling sat in the old woman’s barn.

“If you don’t lay eggs soon, the old woman will pop you in her pot,” warned the cat who lived in the cottage.

The old woman kept stuffing the duckling with food.

“If you won’t lay eggs, hurry up and get plump so I can eat you for my dinner,” she threatened.

The ugly duckling was so scared he lost his appetite.

“All I wanted was to find someone who would love me,” he cried.

One night, finding the door of the barn open, the duckling escaped. He waddled away from the cottage as fast as his webbed feet would carry him. By morning he found himself in a bed of reeds.

“Nobody wants me,” the ugly duckling wept. “I think I’ll just hide here.”

Winter came and the water in the bed of reeds froze. The ground became so thickly covered with snow that the duckling couldn’t find any food. One day he sank to the ground, hungry and exhausted. At that moment a friendly farmer was passing by. He picked up the duckling and popped him into the pocket of his coat.

“Poor little thing, you’re frozen,” said the farmer.

“I’ll take you home. My children will look after you.”

The farmer’s children loved the ugly duckling and took great care of him. He was very happy. When spring came, however, he had grown so big that the farmer decided it was time to take him back to the pond.

As the duckling looked down into the pond he saw his own reflection in the water.

“Goodness!” he cried. “How I’ve changed. I am big and white and…”

“...and beautiful,” said a group of swans gliding past. “You are a handsome swan, just like us.”

A group of children who were playing on the riverbank pointed at him.

“Look at that young swan. He’s the finest of them all,” they shouted.

And his heart almost burst with happiness.